Cooler Master Z600 CPU Cooler

The Heatsink

If the Cooler Master Hyper Z600 was a person, it’d be told to stop eating all the pies – it weighs in at a whopping 1045g, which is even more than heavy weight coolers like the Scythe Zipang!

The design is centred on six bi-directional nickel plated copper heatpipes, all of which run through the cooler’s copper base before rising up the full of the cooling fin stack. The base itself is a usual two moulded block affair, with the top section of the block made of aluminium and the lower contact section made of nickel plated copper for better thermal conductivity away from the CPU.

However, the tightness with which the six heatpipes have been crammed into the base has meant that the moulded blocks don’t have 360 degrees of contact with the heatpipes, with clear gaps visible along the join line, reducing the thermal transfer from the base into the heatpipes.

The thermal transfer surface of the base however is of the highest quality, machined to a perfectly flat and mirror shined finish. In fact, the Z600 made such a perfect contact with a few of the CPUs we fitted it to that we struggled to separate the cooler from the processor! While it might make removing the cooler a little trickier, a good contact between the cooler and CPU can only mean more efficient thermal transfer and better performance.

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While the heatpipes and base are copper, most of the Z600’s weight is found in its frankly enormous aluminium cooling fin array – a necessity when you haven’t got the luxury of steady airflow from a cooling fan. The Z600 actually makes use of two different sizes of cooling fins; there are a small set of fins fitted around both the arms of the four central heatpipes at the bottom of the stack, and then larger fins through which both arms of five heatpipes run – the central four and then alternating between the widest heatpipes at the edges of the cooler.

This layout means that the centre of the cooler, through which the four central heatpipes run, has the maximum surface area thanks to its tightly packed cooling fins, while the gaps between the larger alternating fins allow plenty of room for ambient airflow through the cooler. It’s a solid design, combining the large surface area needed for a passive cooler while also leaving some fins sufficiently spaced out to allow air to circulate through.

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Sadly, all those extra large cooling fins have a price – the Hyper Z600 is absolutely enormous – sat on top of an LGA775 board it all but obscures the heatsink mounting holes and utterly dominates the board. It’ll be interesting to see what Cooler Master has come up with to securely mount this monster onto your unsuspecting motherboard.